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The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources and the development of packet switching in the 1960s. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life. (Full article...)

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Homestar Runner is a Flash animated Internet cartoon. It mixes surreal humor with references to 1980s and 1990s pop culture, notably video games, classic television and popular music. Originally conceived as a parody of what the authors considered to be the surplus of low-quality picture books written for children, the site mostly caters towards young adults. Most of the site's traffic comes from the United States; events in the cartoon itself usually take place in Free Country, USA. The cartoons are nominally centered on Homestar Runner. However, the series entitled Strong Bad Email, in which another main character, Strong Bad, answers emails from viewers, is the most popular and prominent feature of the site. While Homestar and Strong Bad are the main characters, the site has grown to encompass dozens of other characters over the years. The site is one of the most popular Flash cartoons on the Internet and is notable for its refusal to sell advertising space (the creators pay for everything through merchandise sales, which includes a line of T-shirts). It grew in popularity largely through word of mouth.

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Photo of Tron Guy taken by subject, Jay Maynard
Photo of Tron Guy taken by subject, Jay Maynard
Credit: Jay Maynard

Jay Maynard is a computer programmer and system administrator. He is most famous for his electroluminiscent Tron Guy costume. He became an Internet phenomenon when his costume inspired by the movie Tron spread across the net from postings on Slashdot and Fark.

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Meg Whitman in 2009
Margaret C. "Meg" Whitman (born August 4, 1956) has been the President and CEO of the online marketplace eBay since March 1998. Whitman joined eBay when the company had 29 employees and operated solely in the United States; eBay is now a global organization with over 11,000 employees. In addition to managing eBay, she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks Animation. According to Forbes magazine, Whitman was worth an estimated $1.4 billion in 2007. She is one of only seven women to have been repeatedly ranked among the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

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Rupert Murdoch
All forms of government ultimately are not going to succeed in trying to control or censor the Internet.
Rupert Murdoch, 2006

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